


Life After Life

by engmaresh



Category: DCU (Comics), Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Established Relationship, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Old Married Couple, Romance, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 19:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15825345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/engmaresh/pseuds/engmaresh
Summary: When Bruce is killed in battle, Clark deals with the aftermath.The aftermath being cleanup, a grumpy Bat, and the weirdest not-a-proposal ever.





	Life After Life

**Author's Note:**

> Please note the first three tags. The death is temporary, but I do go into detail about the gory bits. That's just the first half of the story, it then descends into fluff. See end notes for further details on death/gore parts.
> 
> \---
> 
> In the beginning of the year, I wrote in my planner, _AUgust: write AUs_. That didn't quite happen, but here's one before the month draws to an end.
> 
> No specific timeline and no specific media-verse, but I tagged the cartoons because in my head the dialogue was basically just Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly snarking at each other.

Clark had just finished tying a robot arm into knots when Barry zoomed up to him. The cape in his arms was undeniably Bruce's. It had been drawn up over the body's head, which could only belong to one person.

"What happened?" Clark asked, feeling sick to his stomach. In the heat of battle he hadn’t seen anything, hadn't heard anything, hadn't noticed the second Bruce’s heart had stopped beating. He held out his arms, expecting Barry to transfer Bruce to him, but Barry clutched him a little tighter.

"Headshot. Don't know who." He looked around. "Are we done here?"

"I think that was the last-" there was a loud clang as Diana drove her sword through a large metal head. "Okay,  _ that _ was the last one."

"I can take him back–"

"No, I'll do it," Clark said quickly. "Assist with cleanup. Please," he added, when Barry frowned at him.

"You know, you're not the only one who cares, right?"

"I know," said Clark, but he didn't rescind the order.

“Fine,” said Barry. “His head–” he looked sick. “It’s messy.”

He carefully passed over his precious cargo, insisting Clark cradle the head as though it was a baby’s. Beneath the cape, Clark could feel shattered pieces of cowl and bone shifting amidst a wet mess. He swallowed back bile, shifting Bruce’s broken head to rest in the crook of his arm. As Barry took off in a red blur, Clark tapped his League communicator. “This is Superman, I need a zeta transport for myself and Batman to the Watchtower at my location, now. And report a nine-seven-four to Doctor Mid-nite.”

The transport room was thankfully empty when Clark rematerialized. He shifted the body in his arms, trying to ascertain that everything was still there. Transporting Bruce when he was dead made him nervous, as though life was all that kept the body intact in the beam. He knew it was all in his head. Bruce would call him an idiot if he ever found out.

He headed for the private rooms, sticking to hallways he knew were less traversed. The original members of the league had their quarters in a separate older wing of the space station, which helped him avoid any awkward encounters. Not all members of the League were privy to Bruce’s true nature, and Clark generally tried to honor that demand for privacy. 

In addition his personal code, Bruce’s identification system also demanded an iris scan and voice recognition before it allowed him into Batman’s personal quarters. Not that those weren’t security options available to anyone else, it was just that Bruce was one of the few people Clark knew who used all three. Going through the entire process with the heavy burden in his arms, he quietly cursed his partner’s paranoia. He knew it was justified somewhat, but on occasion such as these, it was trying.

Finally the doors opened, granting him access to the small suite of rooms. The bedroom was sparse, with all of Bruce’s spare suits and equipments tucked behind panels in the wall. There were no personal touches except for a Wonder Woman microfiber blanket folded across the bed (a jokey gift from Diana) and a tacky Gotham snowglobe on the desk (left behind by Barry).

Clark moved to set Bruce down on the bed, but on second thought, carefully laid him down on the floor. Barry had warned him it would be messy. Carefully, ever so carefully, he peeled back the cape.

It didn’t look so bad now. The cowl was fractured, and the part that protected Bruce’s jaw had broken apart from the main piece. It meant that most of the mess was contained, and that Doctor Mid-nite wouldn’t have to be called to pick pieces of graphite and carbon fibre out of Bruce’s face. That said, it also meant that the cowl had to stay on until Bruce’s new life took hold. 

Carefully Clark pulled away the broken jaw piece, once again trying not to gag at the sight of blood, bone and gray matter.

That didn’t quite work when Bruce’s jaw gave way in his hands. 

It took everything in him to gently put it in back in place as well as he could instead of pulling away, screaming. Then he lurched into the bathroom and threw up in the sink. 

Jesus, how did Alfred and the kids deal with this? How did  _ Bruce _ deal with this? His partner was cagey on how he’d lost his other four lives. What Clark knew for sure was that ten-year-old Bruce Wayne had been shot in an alley with his parents, and then found alive covered in his own blood. Two had been lost as Batman, one early in his career and one five years ago in an alien invasion. Bruce never spoke about how he’d lost his second life but Clark had his suspicions. 

He bent over the sink, breathing deeply. Over the bitter smell of his own vomit he could still smell the tang of blood, so he sealed the door. Out of sight, out of mind they said. Not that it ever worked for someone who could see through doors, hear a cricket chirp hundreds of miles away and fly to the other side of the globe in minutes. But he did feel slightly better, not having to look at that broken face. An all too terrible reminder of what could happen when those nine lives were up.

Maybe he was being stupid. Bruce said so often enough. Diana just said he worried too much. He’d died himself and come back. Barry was back too, so was Hal, so was Jason Todd. Bruce had nine lives. So apparently, did Selina Kyle and several other people on the planet. Some were straight up immortal. He could still remember, several years ago when the original members of the League had gotten together and let loose a little for once. “We’d be lucky if we stayed dead,” Bruce has said tipsily. Then glared around the room. “Don’t bring me back.”

They were still four lives away before Clark ever had to think about that.

Sighing deeply, he rinsed out the sink and his mouth. Then he washed his face and his hands, then stripped down to his underwear, throwing his uniform into the nifty alien washing unit, the one Hal had brought that back from some planet, and had Mister Terrific reverse engineer and install in all the personal rooms. Pulling some towels out of a cabinet, Clark then took a deep breath and exited the bathroom.

Bruce was still dead, but his face looked a little better.

Clark started with his feet, unsnapping the hidden seals tucked high near the back of Bruce’s knees. The boots came away in parts, first the greaves and the calf guard that also doubled as splints, then the tough, rugged foot of the boot.  Clark put those away carefully, aware of what equipment and gadgets Bruce had concealed in those heavy soles. Then he stripped away the gauntlets and the finned vambraces, putting those aside to be cleaned. The chestplate came next, the heavy layers of nomex and kevlar lifting up from the liquid armour undersuit. Finally came the undersuit itself. Hidden zippers ran up the thighs, so Clark could easily peel the tights away instead of unceremoniously pulling them off. The top was a little harder, because it meant moving Bruce’s torso, and moving Bruce’s torso meant moving his head. In the end, Clark decided to keep that on.

Funnily enough, having only socks and briefs covering his lower half while the top of half of him still looked ready for a battle gave Bruce the appearance of life. This Bruce looked like a Bruce who had come home from a long night of patrol, taken off half his suit and then fallen asleep. Though usually he took the cowl off first.

Clark tucked a pillow under his head–which now was beginning to look a bit more like a head and less like crunchy meat paste–then on second thought took it away, worried that the angle might affect Bruce’s neck. Then he remembered that it wouldn’t matter anyway. Though injuries and wounds scarred Bruce like any normal human, dying never left a mark. Nevertheless, Bruce would take him to task over the blood now smeared across the pillowcase. He took it into the bathroom to run it through the wash.

He was waiting for the unit to cough up his uniform when he heard an inhale in the bedroom. Abandoning his cloths and the pillowcase, he rushed to the door, only to be pushed aside by Bruce. Who stumbled over to the sink and vomited.

“Ugh. Gray matter. Tastes terrible.” 

Clark, who had the great fortune to never have tasted his own brain, wisely kept silent. He stood aside, surreptitiously scanning Bruce as his partner rinsed out his mouth, grumbling the whole time.

When Bruce tried to wash his face with the cowl still on, Clark decided it was time to step in. “You’ve got your–”

Bruce grunted, and allowed Clark to carefully undo the hidden catch at the nape that allowed the shattered face of the mask to fall away. Clark put it carefully on the sink, while Bruce proceeded to unzip his undershirt. 

“What is this by the way?” he grumbled, peeling the under armor away from his neck. “Either you undress me or you don’t. Don’t half-ass it, Clark.”

“I didn’t want to move your head,” Clark told him, catching the shirt when Bruce threw it at him. He caught the socks and briefs too, and dumped those along in the washing unit along with his own.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asked when Clark followed him into the shower. “It’s too small. Get out.”

“We’ve showered in here together before. We fit. Now let me in, I want to wash your hair.”

Bruce grunted again, but turned around and let Clark direct the stream of water at his head. Blood reaquified and rolled scarlet tracks down Bruce’s back. Clark tried not to think to hard to think about that and all the other things that washed out of Bruce’s hair as he carded his hands through the dark strands.

“Who shot you?” he asked, once Bruce’s hair was mostly cleaned and he’d applied a large dollop of shampoo.

“Don’t know,” Bruce muttered. “Didn’t see them.” He had his arms crossed and his back was ramrod straight, and he was far too tense for a man who was naked in the shower with his partner. Then again, he’d just come back from the dead. New lives made Bruce cranky. He said it took them a while to fit right.

“You were shot in the face,” Clark told him, in case that was data Bruce needed. In the heat of battle, one missed things. Even getting shot.

“Yes, I realised that,” Bruce said testily. He grabbed the shampoo and started soaping himself up with it. Clark sighed and switched out the bottle for the body wash, then started scrubbing his own hair. 

“Do we know whom the robots belonged to?”

“No,” said Clark. “My money’s on Ivo.”

“Hmm,” said Bruce. “Looked like Luthor’s tech to me.”

Clark snorted. “I know Lex’s work when I see it. 

“They might be working together.”

“Yes,” Clark acknowledged. “That might be a possibility. I’ll tell Mister Terrific to look into it, though he’s probably already done so.”

Bruce hnn-ed, turned off the shower and stepped out.

“Hey!” yelled Clark, who was still rinsing out his hair.

He caught up to Bruce when his partner was already halfway into a fresh undersuit.    


“No.” Clark crossed his arms and planted himself in the doorway. “You got shot in the head. You  _ died _ . You’re going to take a nap, and then Mid-Nite will have a look at you and check on your lives, and  _ then _ you can go harass Terrific about the robots. And then you have to call Alfred.”

He expected more of a fight, was prepared for pushback, and was surprised when Bruce just said “Fine,” and took off his undersuit. Less surprising was that instead of going to bed, he sat down at his desk and pulled out the computer.

“At least put on some clothes,” Clark muttered. “You’re always complaining you’re cold in space.” He pulled the blanket off the bed and dropped it on his partner’s head.

Bruce just hmm-ed and pulled the blanket loosely around his shoulders as he squinted at the screen. Mister Terrific, likely having anticipated Bruce’s need for information and eager to put off a briefing with the Bat for as long as possible, had already sent Bruce whatever schematics he’d pulled from the robots.

“Looks like Ivo’s work to me,” said Clark, peering over Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce startled, though he recovered quickly.

“That’s Luthor’s tech.” He pointed at the rotating schematic of a microchip board.

“That’s a microchip. If they’re not using Intel, T-tech, Waynetech or mi, they’re using Luthor-tech.”

“It’s different,” Bruce insisted. Clark could hear his teeth grind.

“Okay then. Flag it and tag it. You know what to do, you created this system. Michael can take care of it.”

Bruce made to get out of his seat and Clark gently but firmly pushed him back into it. “We talked about this. Let him do his job. You can go do yours when you’ve rested. One cycle at least. One and a half hours. Please.”

When Bruce rolled his eyes, Clark knew he’d won. He opened one of the concealed cabinets and threw a pair of pajama pants at Bruce before putting on a pair of his own. But he didn’t get into bed until he made sure Bruce was in it. 

“What?” snarked Bruce, bunching a pillow up under his head. “Not going to make sure I’ve brushed my ears or washed behind my teeth?”

Clark laughed and smacked him with his freshly laundered pillow. “Go to sleep.”

The lights dimmed as they settled back. In the near dark, Clark watched as Bruce closed his eyes, his own tracing the arch of his partner’s reconstructed cheek, the strong line of his jaw. Just hours ago...and he hadn’t been there when it happened.

“Stop watching me sleep, Clark.”

Clark leaned over and pressed a kiss to the curve of Bruce’s jaw. “Sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Hnnn. When I was shot? It happens.” He rolled over so he could face Clark fully. “You were there the last time.”

“Yes,” said Clark, the memory tugging at his heart. “I didn’t even know back then you had lives to spare.”

Bruce blinked slowly at him. Then he reached forward, cool fingers tracing up Clark’s neck and tugging him forward. He felt Bruce’s dry, chapped lips press against his forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“But not sorry that you did it.”

“It had to be done.”

Clark sighed. “I know.” He closed his eyes and shuffled closer so he could tuck his head under Bruce’s chin. Here, with an ear to Bruce’s chest, he could hear the strong beat of his heart, the rush of blood...quieting all other noises that screamed for attention.

“You need to be more careful, Bruce. You only have three lives left now, not counting the one you gave to Alfred for safekeeping–”

“Two.”

“You only–WHAT?” Clark sat up so fast he almost fell off the bed. And probably bruised Bruce’s chin. “You only have two left? When did this happen?”

“For the love of god, Clark, calm down,” Bruce growled. “Let me finish my damn sentence.”

“That-” Clark sputtered. “That’s wasn’t a sentence. You just said ‘two’. What else am I supposed to get from that?”

Bruce gave him a quelling look. “If you’ve quite finished.”

“Yes, yes. Please, tell me what the heck you managed to do with your third life.”

“I put it in a–” the bed bounced as Bruce kicked off his blanket and rolled out. “Here, I’ll show you.”

He spent a moment entering a key code into his desk drawer–of course those were password protected too–and pulled out a ring box.

Clark couldn’t help but gape. “Bruce…”

He waited until Bruce had climbed back into bed. “Is that really?”

“I had John–”

“Constantine?”

“Yes, John Constantine. Jesus, Clark, will you let me finish.”

“You know there are a lot of Johns in the League.”

“Yes,” Bruce snapped, “but only one of them is a magic user. And you know he helped me with this last time.”

“Okay, okay.” Clark held up his hands. “Continue.”

“Anyway, like last time, I asked him if he could transfer one of my lives to an object, for safekeeping. And since a ring, being an infinite loop, is the most stable shape for a life…” He held the ring box out between them, and opened it.

A simple plain ring was nestled in the dark velvet. No stones, no engravings, just a polished gold band.

Awed, Clark reached for it. “Bruce…”

“I’m giving it to Diana.”

“What?”

“I think it’ll be safest with her. No offense,” Bruce looked up at him, “but you get mind controlled every other year and your place isn’t exactly the safest.”

“My place is  _ your _ place.”

“Hmmm yes, and you’re still keeping your old flat which has minimal security.” Bruce sighed. “Look, this is not–I’m not–

“Diana’s still my first choice. I just wanted to run this by you first. Besides, I already gave you a ring.”

Clark looked down at his left hand, where a strip of pale skin around his finger marked its absence. Superman didn’t wear rings. It was back in manor, along with Bruce’s, in a little dish by the bed. The ring, which Bruce had given to him two years wasn’t all that dissimilar to this one. A gold band, plain except for the blue diamond set flush to the surface. It had previously been set in Martha Wayne’s wedding ring.

“Yeah,” Clark wiggled his bare fingers in Bruce’s face. “I like mine better.”

Then he sobered. “Diana’s a good choice. She’ll take good care of it.”

Clark’s blessing received, Bruce closed the box and put it back in the drawer. “Look,” he said, once he’d crawled back into bed and tucked his head in the bend of Clark’s shoulder, “it’s not that I don’t trust you to take care of it. I do. But when it comes down to the odds of it being the safest–”

“Diana’s the best choice.” Clark wiggled free so he could bend over Bruce and kiss him, soft and sweet. “She’d would’ve been mine too. Just don’t tell me I’m last on the list.”

“That’s Hal. You’re somewhere in the middle.” Then Bruce was kissing him back with a little more tongue and teeth. Things got a little more heated, their kissing a little more breathless, the blankets got kicked off the bed, and more than once Clark had to use his powers to keep them from rolling over the edge.

A little while later Clark was reaching over the side of the bed to pull their blankets back up when Bruce said, “You still have whatever lives are left in this old body. And technically the ones Alfred and Diana have will end up in here too. With you.”

“That,” Clark mused, drawing the covers up, “is the most romantic thing you’ve said to me in…” he counted off on his fingers, “three months?”

“Oh, shut up,” Bruce grumbled.

  
  


_ fin _   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Further details on potentially triggering material:  
> Bruce suffers a temporary death. The story starts after he's dead so there's nothing drawn out there, but I go into some detail about the nature of the injury, which is a headshot. Then he gets better. There's no description of pain of any kind, just general details of gore typical to that kind of injury.
> 
> \---
> 
> AN: Bruce's nine lives are inspired by the system established in Diana Wynne Jones' _Chronicles of Chrestomanci_. It's a fantastic YA series, go read it.   
>  That said, I've also drawn some bits from Captain Jack Harkness' frequent reanimations in _Torchwood_ and _Doctor Who_.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for reading! Kudos and/or comments are much appreciated!


End file.
